As I understood it, there was a pressure anomaly from the well that caused
the explosion. The visible part may have been above water, but I really
thought the main event was at the well head. Maybe I'm wrong.

Last I heard no one has figured out what "it" is, so how could they
cross "it" off their list?

Who gives a damn? The people that know best how to prevent disaster is
the people doing the drilling.

The only "agency" that really cares is the accounting office of the oil
company involved. Are you thinking some corrupt government official
actually cares or a bunch of government gobbledygook red tape is more
meaningful than a few 100 billion going up in smoke?

But their plans will be dictated first and foremost by PROFIT MOTIVES,
not what is absolutely safest or best practice. The head engineer is
guided by "how will this look to stockholders on our bottom line THIS
WEEK.
It is already known that additional capabilities for remote shutoff
which have been used on some wells, were not on this well due to the
extra cost.

Trust me, and what we know from lots of history... All that matters
during planning is how it will look on this week's flash report.
There is no doubt that the bottom line no longer looks so hot, but
hindsight is never a part of how these things are planned. Short term
profit is way out in front.
Oh, the recent spike in gasoline prices? Nothing to do with supply and
demand, and everything to do with unregulated market speculators.

Why do you think they don't try to reduce prices on oil? They make a
percentage, so the higher that is, the more money they rake in.
I'd be happy if the courts ruled out non-physical trading. One source
said that oil had been traded up to 100 times on paper, each with
profits, before it actually moved from one point to another, source to
purchaser. That's a lot of useless markup.
--
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian,
or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up
to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
--Thomas Paine

Who makes a percentage? Certainly not the gas station owner. He makes a few
cents per gallon irrespective of the price. In fact, the more the price
increases, the lesser percentage he makes.
The distributor of gasoline is in a similar economic situation. He buys from
the refinery and does NOT mark up a percentage. He sells his bulk gasoline
at the market price.

A guy sells a warehouse of sardines for ten-cents per tin. The guy who
bought them at ten cents sells them the next day for fifteen. The company
that bought the sardines at fifteen cents turns around and sells them for a
quarter. The guy who bought them for a quarter goes to the warehouse and
opens a can.
He takes the opened can of sardines back to the guy who sold them for a
quarter and says: 'These sardines are rancid. They are inedible!"
He is advised: "Those sardines are not for eating - they are for buying and
selling."
Oh.
Humor aside, if you would bar non-physical trading, you would have to ban
insurance policies because that's what futures trading really is.
Perhaps the biggest reason Southwest Airlines made a (huge) profit last year
was because the years before they bought jet fuel contracts at $40 - $50 -
$60 per barrel. Then oil shot up to above $80/bbl.
Interestingly, Continental Airlines did the same thing, but had to sell
their contracts when they hit a small cash-flow problem. They then had to
pay the $80 and $90/bbl price later.
Sure, there's a lot of markup, but no one really loses. The creator of a
future resource (a barrel of oil, a pork belly, a bushel of soy beans)
cannot know what he'll get when the item is ready for market. He's willing
to sell this future product at a fixed price now so that he can plan for the
future. Likewise, the buyer is willing to commit to a future price now so
he, too, can plan.
Rule #1 in an MBA program: "Always trade an unknown variable price for a
known fixed one" is the basis for futures trading.
Even so, futures trading is an open market between a willing buyer and a
willing seller. Why would anyone want to interfere with that?

Huh? Around here the prices across the city increase within half an
hour of each other. Decreases are less uniform.
If a station owner filled his tanks at price X and then raises his
prices a few percent when everyone else does, he's making that much more
profit.
Prices at the pump go up whenever there is the slightest hint of an
upcoming increase in the price of crude, and don't come down until crude
has been down for ages already.
Chris

"Rocket Up, Feather Down" is the principle at play.
When wholesale prices increase, the station has to increase their retail
price to cover replacement. When wholesale prices decrease, individual
stations have no reason to reduce prices immediately because demand remains
constant. Prices eventually do go down - due to competitive pressures.
So, prices go UP due to cost, prices come DOWN because of competition.

Why? Aren't they usually operating on a 30 or 60 day billing cycle?
If so, they could continue to sell at the current prices until they had
to replace it at the higher rates. Alternately, they could increase the
rates slightly, undercut the competition, and still make more profit.
Presumably either of these scenarios would lead to them selling more gas
and thus making more money. Once they reorder then they're making as
much as everyone else, but they've had a short-term spike in sales.
Basically, gas prices at the pump don't seem to follow the normal
supply-and-demand curves that would lead to the highest profits for the
individual stations...there seems to be some organization at work at a
higher level.
Chris

Billing cycle? What's that got to do with what "they" pay.
"They" (whoever "they" is) pay for the fuel, as delivered. Of course
"they" could trade on the futures market, but that has it's costs (and
profits), too. Why don't you ask "them" to sell you gasoline at the
same price for a month at a time (it's called a futures
contract).

"They" have to replace whatever is sold.

"They" are called "distributors". "They" have the same problem that
you do.

Who is "they"?
If you look at all thats involved in getting oil out of the ground,
refined into gas, distributed to the pumps, and sell it at far less than
Pepsi, Coke, Water and other significant products AFTER taxing the shit
out of it, I generally think about how "they" manage to keep the price
so low.
They make a

Thats pretty much how everything works. The percentage raked in by the
oil companies is far, far less than that raked in by Coke, Pepsi, Polar
water, MicroSloth, and a slew of other companies. Oil companies
generally rake in less than 7% profit, BP will rake in a whole lot less
than that this year.

The truth is, Ali Bama, AlGore and the gang won't rest until gas is
around $8 gallon so they can sell their hot air fans to the unsuspecting
public.

True. Ali Bama? New one, deeper than it first looks. <vbg>
I'd been seeing a lot of Obama bin Biden along those lines, and I'm
still waiting for the other veil^H^H^H^Hshoe to drop.
--
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian,
or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up
to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
--Thomas Paine

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